This creator-owned miniseries from Diggle and Jock got a strong – if kind of far-fetched – start with an innovative and fast-paced first issue. The fast pace definitely keeps up in this issue, and as the plot gets ever more complex, the story stretches the limits of credibility while the art hits new highs.
Written by Andy Diggle
Illustrated by JockJake’s life spirals into nightmare as he finds himself hunted by the very hit-man who has framed him for murder. Maybe the victim’s daughter can give Jake the key to the mystery… if he lives that long! Continuing the new thriller from the creators of The Losers and Green Arrow: Year One!
If Jake’s circumstances seemed dire at the end of the first issue, they’re even worse in this one. Still, Jake finds a moment to meet up with Callie, a mysterious girl who might have a different angle on the situation – and she winds up proving vital to the continuation of his search. But with a rogue hitman on the loose, and two people dead already, how much of a chance do they have?
On a page-by-page level, the writing is quite strong. Diggle excels at snappy dialogue, and even though the situation is much more tense now than it was in the first issue, there always seems to be room for a line that tells us something about a character without necessarily being relevant to the plot. And remarkably, Jake and Callie’s interaction doesn’t feel like the Uncomfortable First Meeting that punctuates so many action stories with characters of opposite sexes, but rather something much more antagonistic and pragmatic. The action scenes that follow are engaging and well-paced, and while there’s quite a bit of exposition, it’s well spaced out and easy enough to follow.
Unfortunately, there is a major flaw here. As Vince noted in his review of the first issue, the decision that Jake and a friend make at the end of that chapter, which winds up leading into the events of this issue, is quite hard to believe. This issue reiterates the pattern, capping things off with an action that’s so completely unbelievable that it nearly derails the whole enterprise.
In some ways, ending both issues on this note is forgivable; when you’ve got a certain amount of turf to cover in four chapters, you have to push your characters into dark and desperate situations, sometimes with flimsy reasons for them to do so. The trouble here is that there simply isn’t sufficient motivation for either of these characters to do something quite this risky, quite this quickly, without even making a plan beforehand. The Everyman Who Inadvertently Winds Up Embroiled in Criminal Circumstances Beyond His Control trope is a common one, of course, but it’s only compelling when there’s something about the character as a person that makes him indirectly fit in with this different world, so that he surprises himself with how good he is at rooftop chases and train heists and the like. Jake and Callie are still very much at odds with the underground they’re encountering, and having them rush headlong into it, angry but without clear intention, is a dubious plot device at best.
All through, Jock does clean work, managing to craft a noirish comic that still has a modern edge to it. Working in black and white only, his lines are confident and precise at the same time as expressive; Jock always seems to know how much detail to include and how much to leave out in order to make a panel or a page deliver information as efficiently as possible. But the real standouts here are the layouts, which are endlessly inventive and unexpected, and wonderful in terms of getting across the movement and velocity of a scene.
The chemistry between the art and the writing is rock-solid, unbelievable plot devices or not, and overall, this is a fun and entertaining comic, if not exactly a realistic one. Things continue pretty much in the same vein as the first issue, so if that was your cup of tea, you’ll like this one, too. But the sped-up pace and slight logical disconnect between the sequential events of this issue will prove a deal-breaker for some.
Final Verdict: 7.0 – Browse
